What California Needs To know
About The Coming El Nino.
Causes and Effects
Part 2
Drainage Is Everything From The Top of Your Home To
The Bottom, Around, Under and All The Way To The
Storm Drain In Your Street
Last week we contributed the post "California Residents! How Seriously Are You Taking El Nino? "The Things That Hang Above" which addressed the looming dangers resulting from improper or inadequate drainage from the top of your roof down to your rain gutters and downspouts and finally into a drain that successfully carries the runoff safely to a storm drain system that exits and protects your property as is illustrated in the graphic above.
Today we will address the importance of the drainage apparatus that supports the facilitates this process in a little more detail in hopes that the millions of 
homeowners who will be facing possible drainage and flooding issues will be adequately prepared.
OK, so now you've presumably cleaned and unclogged your rain gutters and downspouts so that runoff flows freely to your surface drainage catch basins and into the curb gutters which will hopefully carry the excesses to the main storm drain system and successfully away from your property.
But wait! Are you sure that will happen? Have you gone the distance and checked your surface drains, French drains and catch basins and exit lines to make sure that they are cleaned and unclogged from debris, sludge, roots, dead animals, etc?
Or, does your drainage apparatus look like the following photos? The photo to the left shows a very poor method for catching and diverting water that actually runs under your home while the photo to your right shows a pretty feeble attempt at surface drainage. Obviously it would take a flood of biblical proportions to actually activate this so called surface drain that protrudes almost 3 inches above the ground..
The photo below left is a perfect example of a totally ineffective drain-line that has not only become broken and frayed but totally clogged with rocks, debris and sludge not to mention that it is protruding upward inches above the surface of the ground.
The photo above right is not an uncommon scenario in the world of ineffective attempts at drainage. First this type of corrugated flex line is not only antiquated but it's easily damaged. This was a feeble attempt to catch water from beneath a home and escort it to a curb gutter. The only problem with this methodology? Water doesn't flow uphill. Duh!!
Having been drain specialists for the past 3 plus decades has given us the opportunity to bare witness to some pretty interesting if not down right idiotic attempts at dealing with pervasive drainage issues.
But this is really no joke now is it? These types of problems cause homeowners 10's of thousands even 100's of thousands of dollars if not total losses to numerous to count.
Sadly in many cases lots of these issues are not covered by insurance but are considered homeowner neglect. So that leaves many folks at risk of digging into their own reserves or having to leverage equity in their homes for needed reparations.
In Part 3 we will discuss and present images of the direct damages caused from inadequate, improper or lack of drainage on, around and under your home.
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